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Friday, October 31, 2008

So much for the “special relationship” between the United States and Great Britain. If it is not in complete tatters, it is fraying badly this morning.

The British Attorney General says he will investigate allegations that a British resident arrested by the US in Pakistan before being “rended” to Morocco, shipped to the black hell hole prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and is now at Guantanamo Bay was brutally tortured after being arrested and questioned by American intelligence officers beginning in 2002.

According to The Independent, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants the attorney general, Baroness Scotland, to bring criminal proceedings against American CIA officers said to be responsible for the rendition and abuse of Binyam Mohamed when he was held in prisons in Morocco and Afghanistan as a result of US rendition.

This follows sharp criticism of US prosecutors by British judges who read secret evidence of torture committed against Mohamed, including allegations his torturers used a razor blade to cut his penis repeatedly. The Attorney General's investigation is expected to include allegations that MI5 colluded in Mohamed's rendition. Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national and British resident, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, where he was questioned by an MI5 officer before being handed over to the Americans.

On Tuesday, Government lawyers wrote to the judges hearing Mohamed's case against the UK government in the High Court. In the letter they said "the question of possible criminal wrongdoing to which these proceedings has given rise has been referred by the Home Secretary to the Attorney general for consideration as an independent minister of justice." Baroness Scotland has been sent secret witness statements given to the court and public interest immunity certificates for the proceedings.

Mohamed, 30, accuses MI5 agents of lying about what they knew of CIA plans to transfer him to a prison in North Africa, where he claims he was subjected to horrendous torture to extort a confession. Last night, his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, said, "This is a welcome recognition that the CIA cannot just go rendering British residents to secret torture chambers without consequences, and British agents cannot take part in US crimes without facing the music."

The US State Dept. had no comment this morning on the British claims, a spokeswoman telling me, “we do not comment on matters before foreign courts.” A spokesman for the CIA did not return several phone calls.

McCain’s Dirty Hands

That the CIA was able to do this is partly the responsibility of John McCain. Once a strong campaigner against the US using torture, he caved in to the Bush administration by allowing an ammendment to an anti-torture bill he sponsored and shepherded through Congress that exempted the CIA from the law’s key provisions.

Human rights groups have sharply criticised the British government for allowing CIA “torture flights” to refuel in England as well as fly through its airspace. A special European Parliament investigation condemned the US for its policy of “extraordinary rendition” where individuals suspected of participating in terrorist activities are flown to third countries that use torture as a matter of routine when questioning political prisoners.

“If John McCain had held firm in barring torture by any US government agency, Mr. Mohammed would have avoided being tortured whicforced him to confess to crimes he did not commit,” a spokesman for Human Rights Watch in Britain told me this morning.

“As a result of capitulating to White House demands,” she added, “McCain’s dirty hands are all over this case.”

Another Bush Lie

Torture under any circumstances violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention which both the US and Great Britain have signed. At the time of Mohammad’s rendition, George Bush lied repeatedly when he stated at news conferences between 2004 and 2006 “the US does not torture. Period.”

In August, two judges ruled allegations of torture were at least arguable in Mohammad’s case and stated that MI5 information relating to Mohamed was "not only necessary but essential for his defence.” The judges have read statements and interviews with Mohamed between July 28 and 31, 2004, when he says he was forced to confess to terrorism. The judges said, "This was after a period of over two-and-a-half years of incommunicado detention during which Binyam Mohamed … was tortured."

He was first held in Pakistan in 2002, where a British agent interrogated him; he was then sent to Morocco by the CIA and allegedly tortured for 18 months. He was rendered to the secret "Dark Prison" in Afghanistan, where his torture is alleged to have continued. Since September 2004, Mohammad has languished at Guantanamo Bay.

If the British Attorney General finds that the charges of torture are true – which will require merely going through MI5 and MI6 files – then criminal warrants could be issued against Americans who were involved in Mohammad’s torture, rendition and custody. It is doubtful that the Bush Administration would extradite the officers but it could be one of the first diplomatic issues facing the new president in January. If McCain is somehow elected, the officers involved wouldn’t be sent for trial in London but their travelling days and vacations will be limited to the United States.

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Charley James

About Me

If you were born in post-war Milwaukee, you were born a Democrat. So I gravitated naturally to liberal politics, first as journalist and then an activist. I've been writing since I was eight years old and, after working far too long in newsrooms - local newspapers, major market television and radio stations, assistant editor of a major business newsweekly - I've spent much of the past decade as an independent investigtative jouralist. Media outlets have published, cited or quoted me including The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Financial Post, TruthOut, LA Progressive, UK Progressive, TVO, PBS and BBC News. When not covering and writing about politics, I scribble out random thoughts on the peculiarites of modern times.